


Follow

by JinxedAmbitions



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 12:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5290292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinxedAmbitions/pseuds/JinxedAmbitions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one believed that Jake was an exemplary soldier before he became a Loser.  No one would believe that Cougar was his downfall, but it was a fall Jake gladly took.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow

**Author's Note:**

> I took song prompts a while back on Tumblr. This was inspired by the song I'll Follow You by Shinedown. It was given to me by CoolBlueIntrovert.

No one believed it when the Losers told them that Jake was the closest to the perfect soldier among the lot of them. No one ever believed that before being assigned to the Losers that Jake had been exemplary. Jensen had even made Captain early because he was in the right assignment and doing it to perfection.

He’d been selected for the Q and showed great mental and physical strength as he succeeded at everything it threw at him. People thought he was going somewhere. People whispered things like future General when they saw Jake walking around base.

Then he was assigned to the Losers. The curse of being the best is often to be placed with the worst in hopes of lifting them to your level. Or maybe someone who just didn’t like Jensen’s trajectory knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist the forbidden fruit.

Jake didn’t fall from grace immediately. Instead, he clashed with Clay constantly. When Clay went off mission, Jake stood fast to his objective. When Roque threatened him, Jake stood up to every challenge. It was chaos, and any time Clay wrote him up or brought his behavior up to the brass, they threw it out.

The Losers were falling apart. They were only getting out alive from each mission by sheer stubbornness. 

And then they were assigned Cougar. Snipers weren’t particularly known for actively disobeying orders. That was a quick and easy way to get one’s rifle or life taken from them, but Cougar was a bad seed. His moral compass too steadfast. His skill too good. He was Jake’s opposite in every respect, and he was his downfall.

At first, they butted heads even more than Jake butted heads with Clay. Their fights weren’t as explosive, but they were no less fierce. Jake tried to pull rank on Cougar when Cougar questioned orders, but Cougar just gave him unimpressed looks. He tried to reason when Cougar refused objectives. He decked Cougar when Cougar embarrassed him in front of a girl in the bar.

Cougar didn’t punch him back. He went home with the girl and showed up the next day with his swollen eye but no complaints. He was a puzzle.

Jake couldn’t figure Alvarez out. He stopped fighting with Clay because he was so focused on what was going on in Cougar’s head. He stopped pissing off Roque because he was distracted by Cougar’s many rituals and superstitions. 

Cougar was fascinating to Jake. He had a set of rules that he didn’t break. Jake came to realize that Cougar fought for the things that war propaganda said they all fought for but few did. Cougar was there to help his family. He fought for them to protect them less from enemies but from poverty. He held no hatred or dislike for the locals of any place they were sent. He prayed for those he killed, and he begged forgiveness for the wrongs he committed.

Jake didn’t understand it. Jake was there for promotion. He wanted to work his way up, prove himself. He’d been an awkward child without many friends, and the Army had provided him with a place where he could excel and be respected. Even the fact that he was a computer nerd didn’t prevent other soldiers from respecting him as it had in high school.

So, Cougar’s disregard for moving up in the ranks confused him. Cougar’s collection of trinkets he’d collected from around the world made Jake wonder why he really did it.

Then one night deep into a mission objective, Jake found he couldn’t sleep. Normally, he rested fine when it wasn’t his watch, but this night he couldn’t relax. He finally got up to walk around. He walked a little ways from their campsite to relieve himself, and that’s when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, right before there was an explosion of blood and brain matter across his back.

Jake dove to the ground and curled into a ball, looking up to see two bodies fall to the ground behind him. The one closest to him had been hit in the head while the other had been hit in the upper chest. Neither had stood a chance.

Jake knew it was Cougar’s doing. He also knew that it wasn’t Cougar’s watch. The man had just taken off and watched over them throughout the night.

As they hastily gathered their things, Jake didn’t know what to say to Cougar. Cougar wasn’t acting any differently, but Jake felt like he needed to say something. He needed to thank him. If it hadn’t been for Cougar, he probably would be dead, injured at the very least.

Every time he approached Cougar though, his words left him. He stumbled a few times over his words before retreating. Everyone noticed, and if they hadn’t been booking it out of there as fast as possible, they probably would have given him shit for it. Cougar didn’t seem to notice or care, and suddenly Jake felt dismissed and small.

He owed his life to Cougar, and Cougar wouldn’t even give him the time of day to show his gratitude.

Jake was off the rest of the mission. He second guessed himself. He followed Clay’s lead without question because he didn’t trust his own judgment. He hadn’t even heard those guys coming. Was he sloppy because he’d been tired? Was he just not as observant as he thought he was? Jake was in conflict.

It was only made worse because the rest of the team wasn’t shaken at all. They’d all patted Cougar’s back and congratulated him on two perfect shots then moved on, but Jake couldn’t. What if they hadn’t been perfect shots? Jake could’ve been dead.

Jake didn’t expect it to be Cougar who would say something about it first. Well, he wasn’t the first, but he was the one that didn’t stutter or walk way when his words dried up.

Jake was eating alone one morning while he waited for a transmission when Cougar approached him and sat down without a word.  They sat quietly for several minutes before Cougar spoke, but it wasn't awkward or stilted.

“It is easy to forget that what we do has great consequences. So much of it depends on our adrenaline to help us forget that real lives are lost when we pull the trigger. It becomes my life or theirs, and my life always wins. That’s what they count on. Training is for muscle memory, so when you go on instinct you don’t need to think about where your gun is.  If you don’t have the will to live, you are useless. But for me, I am often removed from that. Yes there are dangers, many of them, but when I look through a scope, no one is pointing their gun back at me. It is not me or them. My will to live often has little to do with whether or not I choose to let them live.” Cougar spoke deliberately as though he’d put great thought into exactly what he needed to say.

“All life is valuable, Jake. If I forget that then I am a monster. I do monstrous things, but I feel every death I cause. I mourn those lives I take. I weigh every kill I make as I line up my shot. That said, I did not question that night, and I do not mourn those deaths,” Cougar said, then rose and walked away.

Jake was left with his mouth hanging open. It shook him to his foundation. Made him question everything. 

Jake didn’t argue with Cougar after that. Cougar’s long silences made sense to him. He didn’t question Cougar’s willingness to follow orders or directives. 

And when he stopped questioning Cougar’s every move and arguing the littlest things, he found that Cougar was actually one of the most interesting and kindest men he’d ever worked with. He had a subtle sense of humor, and he always had time for Jake’s thoughts and questions. He didn’t talk all that much, but he listened. He gave support without being asked for it.

Jake could measure the trajectory of his career by the stages of his relationship with Cougar. Jake’s future was bright when he hated Cougar. The likelihood of reaching General was gone by the time he respected Cougar and his decisions. Leading his own unit was iffy when he shared his first beer with Cougar after one hell of a botched mission. Commendations were a thing of the past when he started to see Cougar as perhaps more than a friend. Respect of his peers was gone by the time he kissed Cougar for the first time. It was worth it. What good was respect when he could have Cougar’s lips on his?

All chance of being reassigned to a more respectable unit vanished when they became intimate. By the time Jake could admit to himself that he loved Cougar, he was questioning more directives than any other member of the Losers.

However, by then, Jake didn't want to be anywhere else anyway. Every reason he’d joined up seemed to fade as he grew to know Cougar better than anyone else. His values shifted. He stopped striving to succeed as a way of finding acceptance, and began to realize that Cougar had his back whether he was the perfect soldier or the goofball he’d grown up as.

Jake stopped resembling Captain Jensen, and people quickly forgot what a shining example he’d been, and Jake didn’t miss it. He didn’t miss their false respect or their all or nothing attitude. He preferred the way Cougar looked at him in the morning after difficult missions. The way Cougar’s eyes showed that his opinion of Jake never wavered even when Jake fucked up.

It was a sweet descent, and Jake fully believed that while he’d been assigned to the Losers to make them a better unit, it was the Losers that made him a better soldier. And it was Cougar that made him a better person.

And when things got difficult, and even Cougar’s steadfast faith was tested. They still had each other to lean on.


End file.
